It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look.....To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Henry Thoreau

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Zak's birthday week :)

This past week held Zak's 21st birthdayHe had some pals over to play soccer...and made them some spaghetti

Noah's first rugby game ( with cousin Jay)

Birthday boy and little buddy

Outside my window: Very, very bright sun but windy and cool.

I am thinking -- it feels like a vacation this week. T is home!

From the schoolroom: Started a new writing program (Jensen's Format Writing) with the boys. I think it was a success! ( or will be)

From the kitchen: Since there has been an abundance of low priced strawberries at the grocery store, freezer jam has made a reappearance in our lives :).

I am reading and watching:

Reading: "Cider with Rosie" by Laurie Lee

Such a poignant, funny, charming little book about a boy's life in rural England before WW 2. His father had abandoned the family and he was raised by his mother along with 6 other children. I don't think I have read vignettes that so masterfully transport you back into the past as these do.

Watched:

Berkeley Square

(love it, but only on Disc 1)

The Young Victoria

Absolutely gorgeous costumes and the actor who played Albert REALLY looked like him. I don't know, although it was a *nice* movie, it had a strange cadence to it.

Around the house: Working on the outside. Raking, weeding, and hopefully.....lawn cutting and weed whacking will be happening this week. Perhaps the start of a garden by next?

What we will do this week:" I was so excited to find a PAVED path close to the house today. " Wow, we really love that path. It is just long enough that the kids don't get worn out yet I feel like I have done some exercise ( probably I should take two trips around it, but I haven't gotten the kids on board with that yet :) It is so peaceful and lovely and so close to home. It feels like our little corner of the world.

All of sudden we have an explosion of GAMES from the various sports teams everyone is on. Well, that is spring...and fall...for our family it seems. 3 soccer and 1 rugby this week. Tickets for the Macomb Ballet's production of "Cinderella" with my girls on Friday!

My daughter's blog

Someone who has a why can live with any what and any how.Viktor Frankl

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

George Bernard Shaw

And it is this humanity of Jesus that makes visible what is divine in him, which makes him manifest to us as God. Frenzy of any kind - even if it is 'religious' zeal and frenzy - is totally alien to the man of the New Testament. Think about it: Every time that we believe we are absolutely indispensable, every time we think that the world and the Church depend on our tireless activity, we over-value ourselves.

It is not that I wish to sing the praises of laziness, but I do wish tosuggest a certain change in the table of virtues as it has evolved in theWestern world, for which only action counts as a legitimate and conceivableactivity - whereas meditation, wonder, self-communion and silence are seento be indefensible and worthless, or at the very least, 'activities' thatneed to be justified.